Chapter 2: The Bikini Gauntlet
The back door slid shut behind me with a final, quiet click, but it felt like the sealing of a tomb. Through the glass, I could see them—my friends, my world, spread out across my deck like nothing was wrong. Laughter bounced off the water. The scent of grilling meat and coconut sunscreen soaked the air. My old stereo pumped out a familiar indie rock riff.
And here I stood, on the other side of the glass, in a body that wasn’t mine.
The emerald green bikini Sabrina had handed me—with a muttered, “You’ll need this,” and a look of profound pity—was a confession written on my skin. The top was two precarious triangles of fabric connected by strings that dug into the new, tender flesh of my neck and back. It held, it lifted, it presented. With every shallow breath I took, the expanse of pale, smooth cleavage shifted. The bottoms were a mere suggestion, a whisper of green thread that rode up the impossible swell of hips I didn’t recognize, vanishing into the cleft of an ass that felt full, soft, and perpetually in motion.
Walking from her mansion to my house, just across the two lawns, had been a lesson in humiliation. My center of gravity was gone. Each step was a teetering sway. My breasts bounced, a distinct, separate jiggle that sent a ripple of alien sensation straight to my core. The soft brush of my inner thighs against each other was constant. And between them, a new, profound emptiness, a hidden fold of sensitive flesh that felt every shift of the thin string, already damp with a nervous moisture that wasn’t sweat.
I looked down at my hands. Manicured nails, shell pink, foreign. A delicate silver bracelet on my wrist. The sandals showed off slender feet, size five, painted toes sinking into the warm deck wood. I was a collection of unfamiliar parts, dressed in a costume of invitation.
I had to move.
Pushing the door open, the noise and heat washed over me. A few faces turned. Conversations dipped.
“Well, hey there!”
Mark Mooers emerged from the crowd like a ship cutting through water. Six-four, built like he owned the gym he probably frequented, with an easy, predatory grin. He was holding a beer, his thumb tapping against the bottle. His eyes didn’t meet mine. They traveled. A slow, thorough scan from the top of my blonde head, down the length of my exposed torso, over the dramatic curve of my hips, and back up. It was a physical touch. I felt it like a draft.
“Sabrina, right?” he said, finally locking onto my eyes. His were a warm brown, crinkled at the corners. “Justin’s neighbor. Glad you decided to join us.”
My voice. I had to use my voice. I’d practiced in Sabrina’s monstrous marble shower, listening to the higher, melodic tone. It still shocked me.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile that felt too wide on these plush, glossed lips. “Justin invited me.” The lie was ash in my mouth.
“He’s around here somewhere,” Mark said, taking a sip of his beer. His gaze dropped again, lingering on the strip of bare skin between my bikini top and bottom. My stomach, rail-thin and flat, tightened under the scrutiny. “Damn, kid. You’re gonna cause a riot in that. You been hiding all that over there in that big empty house?”
The language was casual, friendly even, but it pinned me in place. Kid. I was eighteen. He was my age. My former age. But hearing it from him, while he looked at me like this, made my new skin crawl.
“Just… keeping to myself,” I managed, parroting what I knew of Sabrina’s life.
“Well, don’t.” He moved closer. I caught his scent—expensive soap, clean sweat, beer. It was overwhelming from this lower vantage. He loomed. “Life’s too short. You should have some fun.”
He reached out. I flinched, but his hand just gently brushed my upper arm. His fingers were thick, warm. The contact sent a confusing jolt through me—a spike of alarm, and beneath it, a traitorous, fizzy sensation that skittered across my nerve endings and pooled low in my belly.
“You’re jumpy,” he chuckled, not moving his hand. “Relax. We’re all friends here.”
From across the pool, I saw myself. Or rather, I saw Sabrina, trapped in my body. She was wearing my cargo shorts and a faded band t-shirt, trying to flip burgers on the grill. She moved stiffly, awkwardly, holding the spatula like it was a surgical instrument. Our eyes met. Her expression—my expression—was a mask of panicked apology. She was drowning over there, just as I was drowning here.
“You need a drink,” Mark stated, his hand finally leaving my arm. The spot tingled. “Beer? Or something girly? I think there’s wine coolers.”
The word ‘girly’ struck a nerve. “Beer’s fine,” I said, too quickly, falling back into my own instincts.
He raised an eyebrow, that grin returning. “A beer girl. I like it.”
He fetched a bottle, opened it with a quick twist against the edge of the picnic table, and handed it to me. My smaller hand wrapped around the cool glass. The weight was familiar, a ghost of my old life. I took a sip. The taste was wrong. Sharper, more bitter. My new taste buds registered it differently, unpleasantly. I fought not to grimace.
“So,” Mark said, leaning against the table, effectively boxing me in. “Justin says you’re all alone in that place. That’s gotta be tough. A young girl like you.”
“I manage,” I whispered. The chlorine was stinging my eyes. Or maybe it was panic.
“I’m sure you do. But you don’t have to.” His voice dropped, becoming more intimate, cutting through the party noise. “I’m just a few streets over. If you ever get lonely. Or if you need anything fixed. I’m good with my hands.”
The double meaning hung in the air, thick as the grill smoke. My face flushed, a hot, unfamiliar warmth spreading across my cheeks and neck. I could feel it. I took another frantic sip of the horrible beer.
“Mark! Stop monopolizing the new arrival!” It was Cheryl from two doors down, waving a margarita. “Come play some volleyball!”
He sighed, a mock put-upon sound, and pushed off the table. But before he went, he leaned in close. His breath was warm against my ear, my new, smaller ear.
“We’ll talk more later, Sabrina. Save me a dance when the music starts.”
He sauntered away, joining the group heading for the improvised net at the shallow end. I stood rooted, the beer bottle slick in my trembling hand. The sensation between my legs had changed. The nervous moisture was deeper, a slow, warm pulse that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the biology of this body, responding to a predatory attention I intellectually despised.
I looked at Sabrina-in-me again. She was staring at Mark’s retreating back with pure horror. She understood. She knew what this body was, what it could feel, what it attracted.
The music shifted to something with a heavier, deeper bass. The thump of it vibrated up through the deck, through the thin soles of my sandals, into the bones of my small feet. It felt like a heartbeat. A drum summoning something I wasn’t prepared for.
I was in the middle of my own party, surrounded by my own friends, and I had never been more alone. The tightness of the bikini was no longer just fabric; it was the squeeze of a new reality. And the only person who knew my truth was trapped in a bearded, male body across a crowd of laughing strangers, just as helpless as I was. The sun beat down on my bare shoulders, but a cold dread was settling deep into this strange, new marrow. The party was just beginning.